22 recipes for making paper from things people have used for two millennia — from Japanese kozo bark and Egyptian papyrus to old jeans, junk mail and the husks from last night's corn.
The simplest way in — junk mail, printer paper, old notebooks.
Brown packaging turns into beautiful natural-toned sheets.
Old newspapers give a beautiful dove-grey sheet.
Old jeans become 100-year archival paper — the original Western papermaking fiber.
The traditional Japanese washi — thin, strong, made from inner bark.
Polynesian and Ugandan tradition — bark beaten flat without pulping.
The original 'paper' — Egyptian reed strips pressed into a single sheet.
Dried lawn clippings, hay, or wheat straw into rustic sheets.
Banana stems are mostly throwaway — and full of beautiful long fiber.
The crown of every pineapple is industrial-strength fiber.
After the corn roast, save the husks.
Kitchen scraps + recycled paper = paper that dyes itself.
The Himalayan paper used for Buddhist sutras for 1000 years.
Pressed flowers and leaves trapped inside a clear sheet.
A roadside weed that gives a paper as strong as linen.
Worn-out linen napkins and shirts make the finest writing paper in history.
Pond-edge cattail leaves are free, abundant, and pulp easily.
Garden cleanup in autumn yields perfect short-fiber pulp.
The original Chinese paper fiber — slow to process, beautiful results.
Forest-floor needles cooked into a fragrant rustic sheet.
The bast fiber of milkweed rivals flax — and it grows in ditches.
Stretched and scraped animal skin — the writing surface of the Middle Ages.